Dreams.

I forgot how beautiful your brown eyes were. I got lost in them as you lay here with me, holding me closely against the warmth of your chest. I needed this more than I could explain. You smiled, kissed my forehead, and told me I felt like home…

The next thing I knew, you were gone.

2:30a.

The house was pitch black. Quiet, less the sound of the drips from a water faucet long overdue a repair.

Gasping for summer’s fresh air passing through the bedroom window, I awoke from my sleep to a pillow drenched in tears.

My own.

Propping myself upright, I impulsively checked for you on the empty pillow beside me where I knew you weren’t and would never be again.

It’s funny how just when I’d convinced myself to move forward, my subconscious pulls me right back in. I can’t tell if it’s you that I miss or merely the feeling of being loved. Either way, the residual emotions attached to the end of the ride always seem to take 3-5 business years to subside.

In the meantime, the dreams keep me dreaming and secretly holding onto the hope that you’ll walk through that door again.

Healing for me has been tough. I lost you in a year where losses were normal for me. Where there once resided a heart filled will so much love to give, there’d now grown a new sort of safe haven for her protection; composed of metal bars and bitter cold.

It’s been 16 months, but sometimes it still feels like yesterday. Pretending that I don’t care only works sometimes and most times, you dance on the front of my mind like the lyrics to my favorite record. I’ve come to accept that I am merely a soul enjoying the experience that God sees most fit, but I often wonder with whom he’ll place my heart for the long haul. I hate to admit this, but still wish it was you.

For a minute, tonight’s dream felt real. My mind had tricked me into thinking a Time Machine existed, traveling back to where we’d once been. Although harder than before, I keep trying to coach myself into being more optimistic. Affirming to myself that love is an experience I’ll have without the attachment of pain. One that’s soft and dreamy with more sunshine than rain. I know God has someone for me who I’ll swoon over in the mornings when the sun peeks through the drapes. Someone who’ll kiss my face at night while I sleep, when my mind travels through less painful memories turned dreams.

Whenever that may be... If ever it may be...

I’ve decided that if I ever fall in love again, it must only end wherever the sky stops to kiss the ocean.

After reassuring myself that things are better off as they are, I boxed up my thoughts of you and tucked them safely back into the parts of my mind reserved only for forgetting.

Holding my pillow as closely as you once held me, I counted the drips from the broken faucet until I drifted off again.